


five hanukkahs in the life of clint barton

by hoosierbitch



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Found Families, Hanukkah, Holidays, Homelessness, Jewish Clint Barton, Loss, Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 09:57:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3286091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoosierbitch/pseuds/hoosierbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it takes more than one light to lead you home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	five hanukkahs in the life of clint barton

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Darkmagyk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkmagyk/gifts).



> Endless thanks to aldfadorisawesome, for the alpha read (and, uh, the first sentence, cuz I got stuck), and to shadowen, for the amazing beta, and for reassuring me that writing upwards of four-thousand words about Jewish Clint Barton was not an utterly idiotic endeavor.

_one._ Clint Barton, age five, finds the Hanukkah presents two days before the first night. His mom thought the top shelf of her closet would be safe. Clint, who scaled the closet in less than a minute after he spotted shiny blue wrapping paper, knows different.

He and Barney have the exact same amount of presents as last year--one for each night--and there are two with his dad's name. His mom never gets any for herself, and Dad doesn’t give presents. Carefully, Clint slips his own presents into the pile. Yesterday in school his teacher had done a whole lesson about Hanukkah and they’d made dreidels out of Play-Doh. Clint had stayed inside during lunch to make extras. There’s one for Mom, one for Dad, and one for Barney. His dad's is the only one that isn't lopsided. They all spin, though, and Clint had copied the Hebrew letters on each side with painstaking care.

He climbs down and closes the door behind him with a proud smile. They’re going to be so happy.

 

 _two_ .They’re passing through Dayton, Ohio when Clint starts seeing Christmas trees through people’s windows. He knows that Hanukkah falls around Christmas, so he figures it’s probably pretty soon.

They’ve been with the circus for two years. Clint’s nightmares about the orphanage have finally stopped, and between his work with Trick Shot and Barney’s work with the roustabouts, they’ve earned a bed in the caravan with the fortune teller and the Strong Man. The bed’s almost too small for Clint and Barney to sleep in together, but it’s cold enough most nights that neither of them complain.

It’s still not a home, Barney says. They’re gonna leave the circus soon, Barney says, and he’s gonna get a job, and Clint’s gonna go to school, and they’re gonna be just fine. Barney talks about it when he’s mad about the chores he has to do, or if they go too long without food. Barney talks late into the night about all the food they’re gonna have and the clean clothes they’re gonna buy. Clint likes Barney’s dream, and sometimes he adds his own details, like how they could have a dog, and Barney could get a motorcycle.

Their shared bunk in the circus isn’t a home, but it’s closer than they’ve had since Mom and Dad died. The caravan smells like the fortune teller’s bad perfume and the Strong Man’s BO, but it also smells like varnish from the latest paint job and the manure that sticks to the bottom of their shoes no matter how much they clean them and somehow all of those scents mix together to make something comforting.

Clint figures that it’s not home, and they’re not gonna stay, but maybe it’s okay if they dream about more than leaving. Maybe it’s okay to want to stay just for a bit.

He doesn’t know which night of Hanukkah they’re supposed to be on, but the fortune teller only has two candles to spare, so they might as well say it’s the first. He waits in their bunk, holding both candles and a lighter, quivering with excitement.

“Barney,” he whispers, when his brother comes stumbling in, holding out the candles. “Look what I got!” Barney’s shoulders are slumped and there are big dark circles around his eyes.

“Unless those are edible, kid, I really don’t care.”

“They’re Hanukkah candles,” Clint explains, fumbling for the lighter.

“No they’re not,” Barney says.

“I know,” Clint says, starting to regret the whole thing. “I just thought we could pretend they were.”

“Why?” Barney asks.

“Because—because it’s Hanukkah time, almost.” Probably. “I got you a present,” he says, tucking the candles in his pocket. He holds the present out proudly.

Barney, who had been taking his coat off, shrugs it back on. “I didn’t get you one,” Barney says. He says it mean, like an insult. Clint hadn’t thought Barney would get him anything, but for some dumb reason, it kind of hurts his feeling.

“That’s okay. Do you want yours anyway?”

Barney says no and leaves.

Clint bites his lip and doesn’t follow. The present is so dumb. He’d wrapped it in an old circus poster, and he didn’t have tape, so he’d played with the folds until he got it tucked in, a little origami secret.

“What is wrong?” The Strong Man’s loud voice shocks him out of stillness. Clint jumps and hides the present behind his back. The Strong Man draws the curtain between their separate spaces and peers through the gloom at Clint.

“Nothing,” Clint says quickly. “I didn’t steal it.”

The Strong Man laughs at him. “You do not steal nothing,” he says, his heavy accent blurring the words. “Very good.” He points at the candles poking out of Clint’s pockets. “You want light a fire? Burn us down?”

“No,” Clint says. “It was for a holiday, but it’s dumb. Here,” he says, holding out the candles. “You take ‘em.”

“I not take nothing,” the Strong Man says. Then, with a frown, “It is not Christmas.”

“No, uh, Hanukkah? It’s Jewish.”

The Strong Man grunts, then sits down on his bed and points Clint towards the armchair wedged against the wall. “Show me.”

Clint and the Strong Man celebrate Hanukkah together. The candles burn down while Clint stumbles through half-remembered Hebrew, and the Strong Man mangles it more as he follows along. Eventually, Clint opens Barney’s present—a half-full pack of cigarettes he’d found on the ground—and they light them with the Hanukkah candles and smoke till the floor is covered in ash.

The fortune teller screams at them when she gets back and sprays so much perfume around to cover up the scent of smoke that it makes Clint’s eyes water. The Strong Man laughs and obligingly forces the windows open.

It’s nearly Easter when Barney talks to him again.

 

 _three._ There is something painful and dangerous that rattles in his lungs and tears at his muscles when he moves.

It’s his first winter on his own, and his fake ID won’t hold up to scrutiny long enough for him to pick up even the shittiest of jobs. His body is painted with fading bruises, and there are scars like raised mountains on the map of his body, pointing in the direction Barney and Trick Shot went when they left.

He’s fallen in love with New York in the way only an outsider can. He is lit up by its flashing signs, carried along in its busy crowds, fed by its loose pockets, and left behind by its frenetic tempo. Over the past weeks, the advertisements have changed from rainbows of neon to combinations of red, white, and green. The taste of snow hangs crisp in the air, but the storefront windows are already full of fake white flakes.

The menorahs that shine in random windows are on their third melting candle when the temperatures drop below zero. There are only two shelters he’s been to that haven’t hassled him about his age, and they’re both full by the time he tries to get a bed.

The sky is lit with streaks of color and the clouds are darkening when he sees a blaze of light streaming through a stained-glass window.

It’s Friday, and he can hear the faint strains of the _Sh’ma_ through the synagogue’s thick wooden doors. The stained-glass window shows a flame in every imaginable shade of yellow, orange, and red, and he is so very cold. His fingers are cramping too badly to fit into his own pockets, let alone pick anyone else’s, so he decides to change his plans for the night and try to get warm.

There’s someone at the Temple door who opens it for him when he manages to wedge it open a sliver (terrifyingly, he can't get his hands to open and stop shaking). She’s young, maybe a few years younger than him, and her smile is nervous. She says, “Shabbat Shalom,” and his lips form the words even though no sound comes out.

She offers him the prayer book and a _kippah_ and gently averts her eyes as he fumbles with the small piece of fabric. He can’t get it balanced on his own damn head, and his flush is bright when he drops it back in her hands with a muttered, “Don’t want one.”

She nods and puts it away, then gestures him into the sanctuary.

He hasn’t been in a temple since his parents’ funeral. This one is huge, big enough for hundreds of people, even though it’s only maybe half-full now. The walls and ceiling are made from beams of light-colored wood, and the massive stained-glass window takes up one entire wall.

He spends the service mumbling along with most of the prayers and staring at the holes in his shoes when all he can contribute is the unison _Amen_. There are some prayers he’s never heard before, new melodies for some that he does remember, and others, like the _Kiddush_ , that he remembers as clearly as if he’d said them every night of his life.

Silently, he offers his mother’s name when the rabbi asks if there is anyone they’d like included in their prayers of remembrance.

Whispering, he says, _Barney_ , when they sing _Misheberach_ and lift their voices together, asking for healing for the ones they love.

The rabbi’s son goes up when it’s time to light the Hanukkah candles. The flames dance as they all sing the blessing. (Clint hears his mother’s stifled laughter and his father’s gruff mispronunciations; he hears Barney’s muttered _This is so stupid_ and the Strong Man’s solemn tones.) He adds his own hesitant voice to the mix and slips out of the sanctuary while the rabbi is inviting everyone to join them after the service is finished for refreshments.

He leaves the sanctuary but stays in the building. There’s a utility closet off a back hallway and he curls up inside next to the water heater. He falls asleep to the sounds of laughter and light conversation.

It’s late when he wakes up. He slips through dark hallways, picks a few locked doors, and helps himself to the embarrassing amount of leftovers in the kitchen’s garbage cans.

For the next few nights, he finds his way back to the fire in the window, eats food that will not be missed, and sleeps in a warm corner.

On the last night of Hanukkah, he finds a plate of food on the kitchen counter, carefully wrapped in saran wrap that’s beaded with steam from the still-warm meal. There is a note in scrawled cursive: _For our unexpected guest. Take whatever you need._

He’s a dozen blocks away before he stops to breathe.

He cannot afford to be noticed. His ID says eighteen, but his face tells the (barely sixteen) truth. If he is caught—. No. The rattling in his lungs has quieted, and the hunger in his stomach no longer wracks his whole body. Hopefully, he has stolen enough kindness to last him through the winter. He can’t risk more than that.

 

 _four._ Clint doesn’t keep track of the days of the week, let alone minor Jewish holidays, so it comes as a bit of a surprise when Coulson waves Hill down in the cafeteria to wish her a happy Hanukkah. Nevertheless, Clint takes full advantage of Phil’s momentary distraction to steal the slice of pie from his plate. Phil has abysmal eating habits, and Clint’s still hoping to grow at least one more inch, so it’s really for the good of SHIELD as a whole that he eats Coulson’s dessert.

“Happy Hanukkah to you too, my darling goy,” Hill says, sitting down next to Coulson.

“You’re Jewish?” Clint says, through a mouthful of warm apple filling.

Hill rolls her eyes. “Yes, Barton, and I’ve only been asked if Jews have horns once in my life. You aiming to make it two?” She’s maybe not his biggest fan.

“If you have horns, it’s because you’re the devil, and no one who’s gone through one of your morning training sessions would say otherwise.” She smirks happily. “But, uh, I’m actually kind of Jewish?”

She tilts her head to the side and squints at him. “You look more Aryan than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“My dad wasn’t Jewish,” he says. “My mom was.” He’s about to say that his dad’s family had been blond-haired and blue-eyed and that his mom had stuck out like a dark-haired sore-thumb, but they’re both already staring at him, so he keeps his mouth shut. He hasn’t ever talked about his family before now. They know he’s a few demerits away from getting his ass kicked back out the door; no need to give them more fucked-up Barton backstory.

“I’ve got an off-base apartment,” Hill says. “Come by on Tuesday. Wear something nice.”

*

He spends an anxious afternoon at the mall, getting more and more desperate until a saleswoman takes charge of him. She shoves him in a dressing room and throws clothes at him until he’s too dizzy to argue. He leaves wearing the outfit she said made him look like a young Robert Redford, the scuffed up clothes he’d worn into the store crumpled in the bottom of the other bags.

Hill gives him a long once-over when he knocks on her door. “You’re on time,” she says.

“Don’t got to sound so damn surprised,” he mutters.

“Less talking, more working,” she says. She takes his coat from him and hangs it up, then shoves him into the kitchen. The counters are covered in an unbelievable amount of food. “You know how to cook?”

“Yeah,” he says hesitantly. He’d helped the conjoined twins in the circus kitchen when he’d gotten old enough. If he could work around the whirlwind of their knives and criticisms, he could probably handle himself well enough with just Hill. Maybe. Hopefully.

“This is my great-grandmother’s latke recipe,” she says, putting a piece of paper so grease-stained as to be entirely transparent in front of him. “Generations of Hill women have managed to use that recipe and not fuck it up.”

He nods obediently and grabs a potato.

She tunes the radio onto some random Top 40 station, and the only non-Christmas song they hear is ‘Frosty the Snowman.’ He hums ‘Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel,’ to himself until Hill chucks a handful of actual dreidels at his head. About half of them are made out of cheap plastic, but the rest are a combination of smooth wood, porcelain, and clay. They’re beautiful, even the ones that are more decorative than aerodynamic. He spins them idly while some upbeat chick sings ‘White Christmas’ in the background. His fingertips are pruney, and there’s mountain of shredded potatoes next to him.

When Hill comes in, he holds up one of the oldest dreidels (made out of wood, with the Hebrew letters carved deep into its sides). “What’s that mean?” he asks, pointing at a letter on its side.

“You don’t know what they mean?”

He shrugs. “Well enough to gamble with, sure. But I never saw this one before.”

“My family collects dreidels,” she says, coming over to him. “My dad gives new ones to us every year.” She picks up a dreidel that is, impossibly, Disney themed, and turns it so it’s Cinderella-side up. There’s a Hebrew letter distorting the flow of her gown. “Dad got this one in Israel. Usually, the letters stand for ‘A great miracle happened there.’ But if you’re in Israel, you say, ‘A great miracle happened _here_ ,’ so the fourth side is the letter _pei_.”

“Miracles start at home,” Clint says to himself, spinning the dreidel and making it land on _pei_.

*

Sitwell and Coulson show up around seven, right when the pile of latkes on the counter starts to tip over. Hill sets up the menorah and makes Clint sing the blessing with her before they eat.

When the food is almost gone, and they’re at the bottom of their sixth bottle of wine (Sitwell can really put the Manischewitz away), Coulson asks, “What’s Hanukkah actually about?”

Hill’s panicked eyes meet Clint’s. He shrugs helplessly. “Well,” she says. “It’s about.”

“The Maccabees,” Clint supplies.

“Yes! The Maccabees. Who lived in. Israel. And were fighting a war against the—the…Otherbees.”

 _Otherbees?_ Coulson mouths silently. Clint glares at him. “And,” he says, picking up where Maria left off, “a really important lamp got knocked over. They set it back up, but they only had enough oil for one night. But the oil lasted eight days. Which was long enough for one of the Macabees to run off and come back with a refill.”

“And that, my friend, should be enough for you!” Maria finishes, waving her spatula threateningly at Coulson.

“It’s a celebration of oil,” Clint adds. “You get to eat greasy food and drink a lot. And that’s all that really matters.”

“Amen,” Sitwell says solemnly.

Clint is full and warm and tipsy. He’s wearing an oil-speckled apron, and Hill’s hair is coming out of its messy bun. He feels like he belongs, more than he has in…he can’t remember feeling like this since he was a kid. He excuses himself for a minute, and gets a small bag from the pocket of his coat. He hesitates in the doorway when he gets back.

He knows that he is very good at ruining good things. Barney had taught him that well enough, but Clint’s not so old that he can’t learn new tricks.

He tosses small newspaper-wrapped objects at the other three. “Wha’s this?” Sitwell asks, squinting at the Archie cartoon wrapping paper on his present.

“Nothing much,” Clint says, staying with his back against the wall. Nerves are mixing uneasily with the wine in his stomach. “Just some stupid little things.”

“I love it!” Hill says with a gasp. Clint had wrapped her present in a Family Circus cartoon of Billy bouncing around his own backyard. She’s holding up a pair of amber earrings he’d seen in an Iraqi marketplace a few months ago that had reminded him of her. They’re small and smooth, filled with sharp fissures that shine in the flickering candlelight.

“You asshole,” Sitwell says fondly, looking at his new Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

Coulson just laughs, turning his ballpoint pen upside down. The picture of Captain America in the barrel shifts, revealing a yellow-polka dotted bikini under the star-spangled uniform.

Hill drags him down to kiss him on the cheek. Sitwell promptly grabs him and kisses the opposite cheek. Coulson calls him _Clint_ when he says thank you.

When the candles are more waxy puddle than wick, Hill teaches them a version of strip dreidel that she apparently learned while on a trip with her Temple youth group. It’s mostly a blur of dark wine and laughter, but Clint vaguely remembers shamelessly cheating with each toss of the dreidel, Sitwell throwing one of Hill’s boots at him, and the way that Coulson’s blush travels all the way down his bare chest.

 

_+1 the days of atonement_

The first Rosh Hashannah after the Chitauri attack, the synagogue fills to overflowing. Extra chairs have to be squeezed into every aisle, then the hallways, then the sidewalks outside, while speakers are jury-rigged to carry the rabbi’s voice to the edges of the crowd.

Clint, who had come early, sits at the end of the last pew underneath the shattered stained-glass window. There are tiny shards of red glass worked into the carpet. Everywhere there are paper signs taped up, warning people not to walk around barefoot.

He sits and holds his prayerbook while the temple’s staff runs around, trying to get people settled. They look frazzled and frustrated, but there’s not a single one of them who doesn’t smile every time they meet someone’s eyes.

The service starts half an hour late. The sun has set, and the older congregation members look vaguely mutinous. A handful of children are crying. When the service starts, the rabbi, who looks haggard and small, looks across the messy crowd and smiles so sadly that Clint has to look away.

Their unison is ragged and uneven, but every word, every prayer, is painfully honest. _We are your people Israel,_ they sing. _We need you,_ they pray.

When they pray for the dead, the rabbi does not read a list. It would be impractically long. Instead, he asks them to say the names of their dead aloud. The air echoes with loss even as they try to turn their prayers to hope.

It is a new year, and the world is a new and terrifying place.

*

In between Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur are the days of atonement. Prayer cannot heal the hurts you inflict on the people around you, and God cannot cleanse you of those sins. _Earn your own forgiveness,_ the rabbi had said, before letting them all go.

Clint joins a work crew every morning and cleans the streets until his muscles scream with pain. At night, he works on the helicarrier, wracking his mind to remember his plans to destroy it so they can cover the weak spots. When he sleeps, it is accidental and unwelcome.

The morning before Yom Kippur, he goes to the wall of the fallen. The air is thick with dust. There are dozens of new names chiseled into the marble. _Phil Coulson_ is one of many. Clint sits and stares and knows that there is nothing he can do, no one he can ask, no prayers he can offer, that can make up for what he has done.

When he turns to leave that he sees Hill in the opposite side of the lobby, holding her own pale-faced vigil. She nods at him, and he bows his head and walks away.

Natasha is waiting for him on his bed when he goes to dress for services. “I’ve been fasting,” she says.

“So?”

She shrugs one shoulder. “I googled Yom Kippur.”

“And?”

She looks at him too closely. “You’re not the only one with sins to atone for.”

He smiles at her sadly and says, “Bring your ledger with you.”

She sits next to him on the pew underneath the broken window, and he holds her hand too tightly. He whispers explanations, and points to their place in the transliterated prayers, and she hums along to the more repetitious songs. She leans her head on his shoulder when he cannot cry and escapes with him before the services end, to sit in a dusty old utility closet, warm and dark and safe.

 

 _five._ “I’m glad the director let you take off enough time to come for a visit,” Clint says, resting his chin on Phil’s stomach and poking him in the ribs.

Phil sighs ruefully. “I am a despotic dictator.”

“But not an anti-Semitic one.”

“No,” Phil says with a yawn, “never that.”

Phil had arrived in the Avengers common room on one of his infrequent visits about five minutes before sunset, wearing a rumpled suit and holding a battery-powered menorah, complete with LED candles. The whole team, minus Thor but plus Pepper, had been in the tower. Tony insisted on gathering everyone to celebrate. Clint had sung the blessing over the candles while the team took turns screwing the tiny lightbulbs into the stand. Phil had turned the last one slowly, and Phil, Bruce, and Natasha said a warm _Amen_ as Clint ended the prayer on a laugh.

They spent the evening together, but eventually Clint grabbed a bottle of wine in one hand and Phil’s tie in the other and dragged him off to bed. The others toasted them with Manischewitz and yelled startlingly obscene farewells as the elevator doors closed.

“You still want to know what Hanukkah’s really about?” Clint asks. Phil’s eyes are heavy with sleep, and there’s a light sheen of sweat on his forehead. Clint may have worn him out a bit.

“I’m guessing it’s not Jesus’s birthday. Or anything to do with the ‘Otherbees.’”

Clint laughs and tangles his fingers in Phil’s sparse chest hair. “Hill might have been stretching the truth a little.”

“Only a little?”

Clint shrugs. “Hanukkah’s not really an important holiday. Just happens to fall near Christmas.” Clint laughs a little. “Hey—I think I might be the Hanukkah of heroes.”

Phil raises an eyebrow and lifts his head up so he can look down his nose at Clint. “In that you are a light in the darkness? Yes, you are correct.”

Clint huffs a sigh and looks away. “Sap.”

“Hero,” Coulson counters. Clint glares. Coulson smiles. “So, oh wise one, what is the true meaning of Hanukkah?”

Clint rolls off Coulson and pushes himself up on his elbows. He’s been going to temple as regularly as he can manage over the past few months. The stained-glass window has been fixed, thanks to a generous anonymous donation, and the scars in the wood walls have all been sanded smooth.

“It’s kind of cliché,” he warns. Coulson doesn’t even twitch an eyebrow. “It’s about faith,” he says quietly. Coulson waits for him to continue. Clint looks at him, at the scar that cuts through the flat line of his chest, at the soft curve of his lips, at the familiar depths of his eyes. The room is only lit by tiny LED flames. Clint can see more in the shadows than Phil could dream of. “A long time ago, there was a war,” Clint says. “The Maccabees were victorious, but the cost was…terrible. The light in their temple was destroyed in the battle. The eternal light, the one thing that was never supposed to change.”

The aftermath of the Battle of New York is fresh enough that Clint doesn’t need to describe the wreck of the temple, the bodies of the wounded that filled it, the darkness that threatened as the day began to die. New York, the city that Clint has long loved, that now loves him back, will never be the same.

“The part of the story that everyone knows is that there was enough oil to keep the lamp going for just that one night. So night fell, and they all watched it burn, waiting for it to go out.” The light from Coulson’s gag gift is steady, even as Clint’s voice wavers. Phil reaches down and touches the tear tracking down Clint’s cheek. “You were the thing I was never going to lose,” Clint whispers. “You were supposed to be forever.”

“Faith,” Coulson repeats. He doesn’t look tired anymore. “I’m sorry I wasn’t worth it.”

“No,” Clint says quickly. “That’s—that’s not what I mean. Fuck, I’m no good at this.” He wants to drag Tasha down to explain it for him, but she’d probably just bring a carton of ice cream to enjoy the spectacle that is Clint Barton talking about his feelings.

“Try,” Phil says. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”

“Meaning?”

“About six more hours before the Bus takes off.”

“Right.” He drags the blanket over them, as if the warm weight of it might hold Phil down in his bed forever. He lies down and rests his head on Phil’s pillow. “It took them eight days to get enough oil to refill the lamp, and somehow, the flame never went out. Phil—I never thought I’d live longer than you, and when I did…” Lost doesn’t begin to describe it. Lost, hopeless, wretched. “I didn’t have enough of anything to get me through one day, let alone eight.” He’d blacked-out and come to in Medical, where he’d stayed for three days, recovering from sleep and food deprivation, not to mention a couple of fractured ribs and nightmares that threatened every inattentive moment.

“It wasn’t faith in you, or in God, that kept me going,” Clint says. “It wasn’t even hope.” It had been his fingernails digging into his own palms, it had been Natasha’s steady voice, it had been graceful letters carved into smooth marble, it had been Yom Kippur and knowing that he had not atoned enough. “It was the need to make things right.”

 _At least one more Rosh Hashannah,_ he had bargained. One more year to try and make up for the damage that he had done. He didn’t have red in his ledger, but he had nightmares in blue and Loki’s laughter.

“And that need—that kept me going. It would have kept me going even if you’d never come back.” Maybe for one year, maybe two, maybe eight. Until he could sit through the welcoming of the new year, and say goodbye to the past without regret.

“My Hanukkah of heroes,” Coulson says, with a small and steady smile.

For Phil, for the team, for the help that he has been given and the help he can give others, he will keep going.


End file.
